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Making the personal possible

Innovating Singapore’s social services through emerging technologies and human centered-design

OVERVIEW

Delivering Human Services in the Digital Age

People today don’t just want services. They want experiences. This shift in expectations has prompted government agencies to embark on a journey to transform how they interact with people so that they can serve them in more personal ways, starting with a new perspective on the technology, people and organizations that deliver social services.

The digital age represents both a force of change and an opportunity for more user-centered service design. New capabilities make productivity gains possible so that all sides are more empowered. But because digital evolves rapidly, any adopted system, structure or operating model must also be continuous and adaptive. By focusing on citizens, embracing collaboration and relying on data-driven decision-making, agencies are better positioned to deliver faster, more efficient services to achieve better, more enduring outcomes. These imperatives allow the progression from reactive support in the present to proactive empowerment for life.

THE POWER OF AI

Personalised Services with a ‘One Size Fits All’ Approach

Citizen demand for services shows no signs of slowing, yet human services agencies are being asked to deliver more, and deliver it better too. Can artificial intelligence (AI) help government agencies meet demand and improve services, while also controlling costs?

ENABLING HUMAN-CENTRIC
HUMAN SERVICES

AI can help human services agencies personalise delivery and adopt
a more human-centric approach to service delivery.

AI CROSSES CHANNELS

A single view of the citizen across siloes to create a seamless customer experience on any device.

AI MAKES THINGS EASIER

Automation and self-service enablement help to empower citizens, simplifying the decision-making across the customer lifecycle.

AI ENABLES A PERSONAL TOUCH

The combination of creative, emotionally intelligent humans and logically intelligent machines increases the scope for human touch to be provided where most needed.

AI can sense and analyse the world around each customer and make informed decisions based on what it has “learned” to deliver tailored services for citizens. It can help human services agencies get a broader understanding of citizen issues, and augment workforce capabilities to drive more effective interventions and better outcomes for citizens. In other words, AI has the power to make human services more human

Different users, different prescriptions

User insight can be leveraged across the whole value chain. You are then able to differentiate at the micro segment – to come up with prescriptive messages for different users in different situations.

User is king

There is a need to shift from a rules/policy-driven culture to one focused on the user and the outcome. This will require a new mindset. In public service it has almost been a question of honour to obey the rules of the bureaucracy to ensure equal rights and opportunities for the citizens. But in a digital age, personification is a key concept.

From uniformity to individuality

Advanced analytics can deliver the insight and decision support needed to provide more individualised and relevant services to each and every one of us. This might dramatically improve the quality and impact of public service to the citizens, but challenges the deeply rooted idea of equal rights and equal treatment.

A dynamic model for a dynamic market

We need to go beyond reporting statistics to build a dynamic model of the labour market and gain a better understanding of what jobs are trending out and which jobs are trending in – at the micro segment level. Machine learning could be pivotal here.

Pay attention to the private sector

At the early-concept phase we’d normally go to other public sector companies. We are now expanding this audience to piggy-back on private sector insight and solutions. We are open to cloud services and other commercial offerings.

DEPARTMENT FOR WORK AND PENSIONS

Client perspective

Better by design

Andrew Besford, formerly Head of Business Design at the Department for Work and Pensions UK and now at the Government Digital Service, explores what it takes to transform a vast government department into a modern, citizen-first operation:

The high-value workforce

“We’d like our people to spend more of their time doing the high-value work. We’ll start to see really good things for the workforce from the redesign of the whole business. Ultimately, it means giving our people the time to help citizens where they need it most.”

View from above

“Complex transformations need a view of how the whole picture fits together—i.e. service design, technology architecture, people structures, processes, contracts—and how the transformation fits more broadly with other parts of the organisation.”

Relationships transformed

“Some parts of government do need to meet people face-to-face or talk to them on the phone, so we’re not only putting services online but creating an end-to-end digital business that genuinely changes the relationship between citizens and the state.”

Improve, test. Learn and repeat

“Continual improvements to services are key to organisational transformation. If you’re thinking 18 months, that’s too long—it needs to be much shorter so that policy teams can test and learn what really works.”

The pace of technology change is increasing

“We’re not ranking technologies and placing big bets on one or two that come out top. Everything is evolving, and we're particularly monitoring what's emerging around process automation, analytics, and behaviour change to build our understanding and confidence for how it can best apply to our transformation.”

Technology is the critical enabler

“This isn’t a technology-led transformation; it’s a people-led transformation. But technology does have a central role to play, and many people have had bad experiences of big IT programs in the past, which risks undermining confidence.”

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